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The sovereigns of the country are the people, not the states.

Nah. In Martin v. Hunter's Lessee Justice Jay wrote that, 'the powers of the states depend upon their own constitutions; and the people of every state had the right to modify and restrain them, according to their own views of policy or principle.'

The states CREATED the federal government, not vice versa. Even Jay acknowleged that the states STILL retained the right to alter their form of government.

Then he writes, '[t]he government, then, of the United States can claim no powers which are not granted to it by the constitution, and the powers actually granted, must be such as are expressly given, or given by necessary implication.'

Just as an aside, be sure to read Jay's arguement defining the powers of the co-ordinate branches of the government (look for the expression "shall be vested"). It EXPLICITLY refutes the arguement that the Executive can exercise the Legislative power of suspending the writ of habeas corpus.

Personally, I like the following section from Justice Johnson's decision, 'To me, the constitution appears, in every line of it, to be a contract, which, in legal language, may be denominated tripartite. The parties are the people, the states, and the United States. It is returning in a circle, to contend, that it professes to be the exclusive act of the people, for what have the people done, but to form this compact? That the states are recognised as parties to it, is evident, from various passages, and particularly, that in which the United States guaranty to each state a republican form of government.'

Of course, in McCullough v. Maryland, we have Justice Marshall writing this, 'No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lines which separate the States, and of compounding the American people into one common mass.' Which is most assuredly true, since NO founder would second Morris' motion that would have consolidated the people of each state into on common mass.

And you know that.

Of course, in McCullough v. Maryland, we have Justice Marshall writing this, 'No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lines which separate the States, and of compounding the American people into one common mass.'

This is also from McCullough:

"The subject is the execution of those great powers on which the welfare of a nation essentially depends. It must have been the intention of those who gave these powers, to insure, as far as human prudence could insure, their beneficial execution. This could not be done by confining their choice of means to such narrow limits as not to leave it in the power of Congress to adopt any which might be appropriate, and which were conducive to the end...to have prescribed the means by which the government, should, in all future times, execute its powers, would have been to change, entirely, the character of the instrument, and give it the properties of a legal code...To have declared, that the best means shall not be used, but those alone, without which the power given would be nugatory...if we apply this principle of construction to any of the powers of the government, we shall find it so pernicious in its operation that we shall be compelled to discard it..."

From McCullough v. Maryland, quoted in "American Constitutional Law" A.T. Mason, et al. ed. 1983 p. 165

As to Virginia:

"The mischievous consequences of the construction contended for on the part of Virginia, are also entitled to great consideration. It would prostrate, it has been said, the government and its laws at the feet of every state in the Union. And would this not be the effect? What power of the government could be executed by its own means, in any states disposed to resist its execution by a course of legislation?...each member will possess a veto on the will of the whole...there is certainly nothing in the circumstances under which our constitution was formed; nothing in the history of the times, which justify the opinion that the confidence reposed in the states was so implicit as to leave in them and their tribunals the power of resisting or defeating, in the form of law, the legislative measures of the Union..."

ibid, p. 169-70

Who are you trying to fool?

Walt

The states CREATED the federal government, not vice versa.

The people created the federal government through special conventions called for the purpose. The framers -made--sure-- NOT to use the state legislatures so there would be no question as to the basis of sovereignty.

The -Union- of the states predates the Constitution, and even the outbreak of the Revolutinary War, as Chief Justice Jay said in 1793.

Walt